In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-old Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too strong.

When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.

This book started off fairly strong. I was a little overwhelmed by all of the terms being thrown at me – Tracker, Haze, Sentry, Wraths, Sentries and Workboots – but I was intrigued. The world was interesting, and I wanted to learn more about it. I do think that there should have been a map and a glossary, though. Many of the terms are pretty much self explanatory on their own, but I wanted to know the dynamics of the roles and the city. (I’m sure that comes later, I just didn’t make it that far.) While I liked the world, though, it just seemed like a cheap rip off of The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa crossed with Legend by Marie Lu.

Then Ash and Natalie meet. At first, they hate each other. I was totally on board. Not only is it a forbidden romance, it’s one of those that starts as hate and develops into more. Then, they start to “randomly” bump into each other. And Ash suddenly gains a heartbeat. Because of her. He’d seen her maybe three times, and they weren’t lengthy interactions. From a distance. In passing.

I mean, the idea is cool, but I think it should have happened much, much, later. It just seemed so ridiculous and cheesy! Heartless guy sees girl and suddenly he’s not heartless anymore. BUT THEY HAD JUST MET. *sigh*

So, I was already kind of losing interest when this happened 100 pages in:

I start awake, fear ripping through me. Day stands on the bed, yelling her lungs out as she points toward an object dangling from the light above me. Something warm and sticky drips on my cheek. I glance up. At first I don’t know what I’m looking at, then I start to make sense of the mangled shape above me: patches of white fur, a paw, an ear.
Before I scream, I’m able to notice one thing: Truffles’s heart is missing.

I literally threw my book across the room. If you don’t know already, cat killing is the one way to make me go from zero to pissed off in 3 seconds flat, and most of the time it pisses me off enough to DNF, even if I’m enjoying the story. (It has to be really good for me to continue after that) It is SO UNNECESSARY. There is absolutely no need for that! If you were trying to get a reaction out of your reader…well, it worked. Too bad I won’t ever be picking up this book, or any of your books ever again. It may sound harsh, and some of you may think I’m overreacting, but I have such a bleeding heart for cats that cat killing makes me blacklist an author for it (with the one exception being Jay Kristoff, because that was different. If you’ve read Kinslayer, you know what I’m talking about).

When Meg witnesses the dying moments of a shapeshifting fox and is given a beautiful and powerful stone, her life changes forever. She is plunged into the dark world of the Skulk, a group of shapeshifting foxes.

As she learns about the other groups of shapeshifters that lurk around London – the Rabble, the Horde, the Cluster and the Conspiracy – she becomes aware of a deadly threat against all the shapeshifters. They must put aside all their enmity and hostility and fight together to defeat it.

I got about 80 pages into this before I had to put it down. There wasn’t anything in particular that was REALLY bothering me, I just couldn’t get into it.

The MC’s voice was very, very arrogant, and was grating on my nerves. It was also very dry. Meg -the MC (I had to look up her name, I’d already forgotten) – was a spoiled rich kid, and there was a lot of politics because of the noble family. Her mom was a bitch who didn’t care about anything but status. I can’t stand to read portrayals of parents and children that despise each other.

Meg’s so-called friends seemed to only care about sex and “yummy men.” They kept peer pressuring her to go out to party, getting drunk and losing her inhibitions. It was annoying.

The ONLY part that caught my attention was the part where the fox shifter died right in front of Meg. There was literally nothing happening other than that – just a bunch of rambling drivel. While the synopsis sounds cool, and I love the idea of shifters, I just couldn’t justify forcing myself to get to an interesting part. Also, the really bad reviews tell me that it probably wouldn’t improve much anyway. I may try again someday, but probably not.

The SymboGen designed tapeworms were created to relieve humanity of disease and sickness. But the implants in the majority of the world’s population began attacking their hosts turning them into a ravenous horde.

Now those who do not appear to be afflicted are being gathered for quarantine as panic spreads, but Sal and her companions must discover how the tapeworms are taking over their hosts, what their eventual goal is, and how they can be stopped.

My problem with this one was sheer boredom. I enjoyed Parasite – I gave it 4 stars. Sadly, I couldn’t get into the second one. I made it 106 pages before I had to put it down. I was bored out of my freaking mind!

There was basically nothing happening. The description of mundane things was really bogging the story down. This book is 500 pages for crying out loud! I think a lot of the pointless stuff could have been cut out and it would have been a 300 page book. Seriously, there was one scene where Sal and her boyfriend (I forget his name) were going back to their place to get stuff and it lasted 20 pages. I really don’t care to have a play by play of everything they packed. I don’t.

It got to the point where I was just forcing myself through, and it wasn’t enjoyable at all. I will try to pick this up again someday, because I want to know where the series goes, but it’s going to be a while.

3 responses to “Books I Didn’t Finish: November & December 2014”

Too bad about Symbiont :( I have that series on my tbr, but now I’m not too sure. I hate when I get invested in a series only to have the second or third book drag :( we’ll see how it goes when you get back to it.

Oh no, Symbiont: that’s a shame! I really liked Parasite, but I also noticed that I had some problems with the beginning of Feed. I guess it’s the authors writing style to make it a bit slow and detailed.. I’m curious how I will feel about Symbiont.